Independence Day Weekend Fun

We had volunteered to host the extended family, Family Home Evening for July. My Grandmother had been pressuring me to sign up for one of the months because there were still so many months open. I told her that I didn't think anyone would make the 3 hour drive just for a Family Home Evening. She said that we didn't have to do it on Monday, we could host it any day of the week and that we should just host it and see what happens. So we talked about it and decided to host July, because of the 4 day weekend for many people, and see what happens.
I made a Facebook event for it, and a digital invite that we emailed to all the family making it official. 
Here is how it went.

Thursday before the holiday, I drove to Tucson, baby in tote, to pick up my cousin Brad's girlfriend Amber from the Tucson airport (tiny place). Brad is stations at the post near our home and this was the first time they were actually meeting each other. They met on the internet through mutual friends, and had been corresponding that way for over a year. That amazes me. At knowing my husband for a year of our lives, we were already married and expecting our child.  She isn't a member of the church but she is such a sweetheart. I enjoyed hosting her for the weekend. 
So back to the events. We had Brad and Amber over all weekend.Saturday morning was our ward's Independence Day Annual Pancake Breakfast. The primary children sang "My Country Tis of Thee" and "My Flag, My Flag". They were cute, but we had only practiced with the SR primary and planned on just having JR primary hold the flags (learning German I didn't feel would spare the time for learning the patriotic songs), this was bad because almost all the children who showed up were JR primary. Everyone in our ward was super welcoming to Brad and Amber. It really made an impression on Amber.
The only other family that came down was my sister and her husband with their 2 children. Baby Al was in heaven with cousins to play with all the time. And my dad came down. That in itself is eventful because my dad never leaves town over a holiday weekend. He avoids it at all cost. In addition to that, my mom was going to be at Girl's Camp, and I didn't think he'd want to come without her.  Side note, we've always joked that if our mother passed away before him, that he would eat chocolate chip cookies for breakfast and if he couldn't buy it at Costco, he'd never eat it, good thing for us you can buy just about anything at Costco these days.
We had our FHE, it was simple. Not tailored to children though so by the end of it, the only non-baby child was really restless. But he was doing great considering. We fed everyone well all weekend. My favorite thing we made was homemade ice cream. That is a huge tradition for me, it the yummies tradition. My husband and I had continued with this tradition. This year we made two flavors: Blueberry with Fresh blueberries, and Mint Cookies-n-Cream.  Both made as low fat as we knew how and as low-sugar as possible. The only sugar in the Blueberry was the natural sugar from the berries, and the Oreos were reduced fat. It was all made with Spenda and non-fat half & half. Awesome. After calculating the points it was about 2 points for a 1/2 cup. Thats the same as the Fat Free ice cream- but tasted way better.
Church on Sunday was normal. It was odd taking up so much of the row, and to have so many more children (our one, plus my sister's 2) to keep from running away. But Sunday night we drove into town to see the city's firework show. AWESOME show. Living near a military base does have perks. I'm glad my family got to see the show so they can confirm our bragging to be true. It makes me always want to stay in Sierra Vista for the 4th of July.

Monday morning my family needed to head home. Before completely leaving town we made a trip over to Tombstone for lunch. We went to the Longhorn. I absolutely love the Apple Cobbler and their Death by Chocolate. I have no idea what the points were but I didn't care. So good.
Amber went home on Tues. I took her back to Tucson and she went home.
I loved having my family over. We love having visitors! We live in such an awesome place and I love showing it off to friends and family. Not to mention it just nice to have family. But when the weekend it over. It does feel nice to have my house all to myself again and our lives on some sort of a normal schedule. 
Have a great summer everyone.